In Sand and Foam, Kahlil Gibran writes, “Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you” (1994, p. 14).He makes a good point. I might say that three quarters of what I write is meaningless; but I write so that the other quarter may reach my conscious awareness.
If anyone else benefits, that is fine, but it’s not the main point at this stage of my journey.
I write because I have to do so. It has become like breathing and no amount of approval or disapproval or praise or criticism or audience or lack of audience or comfort or discomfort seems to make any sort of difference. I simply must do it. For now.
Looking back, the act of taking up this writing challenge 45 days ago was more like answering a lover’s call. I could not and cannot help but to respond.
As Gibran says, “Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn slavery” (p. 28).
In some ways, I really do have the sense that I am falling in love, or have fallen in love, or am in love, and there are few things that I guard more dearly during my days than these sacred moments where I get to see and hear and watch pre-word-thought being birthed into words.
Love, Gibran tells us, “Love is a word of light, written by a hand of light, upon a page of light (p. 28).
What word? Whose hand? What page?
What light? Whose light?
I suppose I have always felt drawn to writing, but much of that writing is buried in journals going back to my elementary age years. It dawned on me several weeks ago that my Bachelors Degree is in Literacy and Composition. I had not thought about this in a decade! How strange, that forgetfulness. Did I intend to study writing? How did that even happen? I’m not really sure.
In more recent years, along with journals, my writing has found homes in lengthy text message strands to different groups of friends (groups that have been going on for years), dialogues with student writing in their journals and essays, social media posts, and now in this space and place in your presence.
Gibran says, “Should you care to write (and only the saints know why you should) you must needs have knowledge and art and magic — the knowledge of the music of words, the art of being artless, and the magic of loving your readers” (p. 19).
I’m not at all sure what that means, but I do love the “sound” of it and the sound and rhythm of words, in general. I love the sacrilegious tone of being artless in our art. And while I have earlier said that the point of my writing is not to benefit you the reader (and perhaps listener), perhaps I do love you and have you in my mind and heart as I sit here. I do think that is true. Some of you have long been a part of my heart, others are more recent in your presence, and still others have yet to come into my vision. I am not sure where we are separate anymore. This is good. And, I think, true.
“Words are timeless,” according to Kahlil. “You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness” (pp. 20,21).
I believe it. I feel it. I know it. I experience it. Yes, Kahlil. Yes. As you said, “A work of art is a mist carved into an image” (p. 79). And that seems to be the reason you also told us, “Every thought I have imprisoned in expression I must free by my deeds” (82).
There is both the necessity to write and the necessity to know the limitations of the writing that are created by the writing.
Wonderful ironies. Wonderful pairs of opposites.
While not the exact opposite, my original plan for this essay was to write about the Dark Night of the Soul. I had already selected a wonderful Michael Meade quote from his most recent episode of Living Myth. But while I was sitting in my chair next to the bookshelf, Gibran’s little book of aphorism, poems, and fables caught my eye.
I turned a couple of pages and saw a line that fit in so well with my intended theme.
It said, “One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night” (p. 8).
What an amazing connection!
But when I began to write, it was as if Kahlil wanted to say something, something timeless. He said, “Give me an ear and I will give you a voice” (p. 12).
So I did, and he quickly reminded me that “The voice of life within me cannot reach the ear of life in you; but let us talk that we may not feel lonely” (15).
In the reminder, I felt his presence since “Remembrance is a form of meeting” (p.6). And how incredibly profound, because on my city walk with Iris tonight what I felt more than anything was the sense of being lonely.
I gave myself permission to welcome the sensations of loneliness and accompanying pangs of longing. I know where resisting those sensations leads me. And it isn’t Home.
Even so, I could not find words for what I experienced in the acceptance of the longing.
But I would soon read them as if Kahlil had written them for this very moment:
“There is a space between man’s imagination and man’s attainment that may only be traversed by his longing” (11).
The very thing I was wishing would go away but decided to welcome to stay is actually the conduit to finding the peace that was waiting to be found.
So connected. So whole. So unfragmented.
As Gibran says, “It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life. Now I know that I am the sphere, and all of life in rhythmic fragments moves within me” (p. 4).
And, “They say to me in their awakening, ‘You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea.’ And in my dream I say to them, ‘I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore” (p. 4).
Okay.
Enough words.
Thank you, Kahlil.
Thank you, reader.
Thank you, listener.
“Though the wave of words is forever upon us, yet our depth is forever silent” (p. 17).
Peace
